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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Travel Tuesday – Derby, CT – Public Library Research

313 Elizabeth St., Derby CT

The
large old stone building at 313 Elizabeth Street, Derby CT is a charming place
to do genealogy research. My cousin, Pat, and I were in Ct for a weekend with
our cousins. We had one day for research. We began at the Derby City Hall where
we spent much more time than we had expected. When we finally went up the
street to the library we had only an hour and a half before closing.

The
librarian gathered armfuls of city directories and carried them to a large
table for us. We looked for our Brady and Kilday relatives, descendants of
Thomas Brady & Catherine Gibney who lived in County Cavan, Ireland. At
least four of their children: Margaret Brady Coyle, Ann Brady Kilday, William
Brady & Owen Brady left Ireland and lived in Connecticut. Others,
Bartholomew, John and Catherine lived in New Jersey.

Each
was in an archival safe box. Some had loose pages. We wanted to browse through
them but time was against us so we went directly to the pages we needed. We found
many volumes that included our family.

· Locate your family in census years to assist in finding census reports.· Discover when someone died. Above you can see that James Kilday was alive in 1896 but Ann was a widow in 1905.· Look at others with the same surname. I’ve found them living at the same address which shows a connection.· Find employment information & often advertisements for those employers.· See maps of towns.· Read about the towns with details like population counts.

We gathered up our notes & walked out the door just two minutes before the doors would be locked. That evening we treated ourselves to a delicious seafood dinner at the Stonebridge restaurant in Milford CT.

The next day we gathered with our Irish cousins and shared some of our findings. Our rough notes still needed to be organized & typed up. Pat & I are planning to return to the area. Next time we want to go to nearby Ansonia, CT.Related Posts:

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Genealogy, research & my family's history are the focus of this blog. Read about my latest adventures in uncovering more about our ancestors. Contact me with questions or additions to this information. Colleencgbp [at] nycap.rr.comBecome a Follower!

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